Page 33 - 1913 November - To Dragma

38 TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMIC RON PI

you and me work in a woolen mill for six months and wasn't you
always mourning about the noise—and the wages? Now here you
are in a quiet room with three dollars more a week and you keep right
on fussing—fussing, fussing."

Cimbria had closely followed this conversation tho' she hadn't
paused in her work.

She was a striking looking girl with grey eyes and quantities of
pale ash-colored hair arranged without a rat. She looked cool and
neat in a white shirt-waist suit and green silk tie.

As Hannah ceased speaking she glanced at Sophy who was working
in sullen silence.

"But you are not born to such a life," she said. Her voice was
low and throaty,—a pleasant contrast to Sophy's harsh notes and
Hannah's high ones.

"You can't break into that class as a burglar does into a house.
You would not be at home. Last week when I had finished dress-
ing Mrs. Williams' hair she asked me to come down-stairs and lunch
with her. She is old and her heart is weak so she must be humored.
So, tho' I wished to come down town again, I stayed. After we were
seated at the table two of her nieces came in and joined us. They
were very beautiful girls about my own age. They were kind
to me but what would you — we had no common interests.
They told their aunt of their golf, of their dances, of the trip last
winter to Italy, and talked of a possible run into Norway for a few
weeks this summer. I knew the names of all these things, they knew
the heart of them. And I? On what subjects could I talk? Of
how many turbanettes we had made that day? Of how cool it was
beside the fountain on the Common? Of how the babies cry and
cry on the fire-escapes these warm nights? No, no. We are on
different sides of a fence and there is no gate except one is an artist.
Ah, then!"

I t was evident that Gretchen adored Cimbria for while she talked
the German girl's placid face was aglow with pride.

"Why not tell them of the books you read and read, and of the
Grand Opera you hear?" she asked, anxiously, grieved to have her
idol appear at a disadvantage.

Cimbria laughed. Catching Sophy's eyes fixed on her in a ques-
tioning way, she said, " I board at Gretchen's home so she knows my
habits."

"Who took you to Grand Opera?" eagerly asked Sophy.
" I went by myself—it costs but little in the highest balcony."
"Oh!" Sophy's tone was disgusted. "You went because you liked
it. I thought maybe you sat on the floor with some swell and had a